Become a Navy SEAL — An Adventurous Career

Do you kick butt at video games that involve guns and knives and other weapons of destruction? Are you still having paintball birthday parties a few years out of college? Do you wear the same camouflage pants day after day as you watch superhero movies on TV and wonder if you’ll ever find a career that you love?

Well HOO-YA — you can become a Navy SEAL!

Of course not everyone can be a SEAL, but if you’re a young man (sorry ladies) in pretty good shape and think a life of saving others and skulking through jungles and taking out really evil people — SEALs pulled off the Bin Laden rad — is hot, you ought to consider this career.

But wait a minute — before you go rushing over to Coronado and swagger into McP’s Irish Pub, you better get yourself in shape.

The official job description of a NAVY SEAL is:

• Conducting insertions/extractions from the Sea, Air, or Land (hence SEAL) to accomplish covert special operations missions in any environment throughout the world;

• Capturing high-value enemy personnel and terrorists around the world;

• Collecting information and intelligence through special reconnaissance missions &mdash reconnoitering both enemy installations and enemy movement. Carrying out small-unit, direct-action missions against military targets; and

• Conducting underwater reconnaissance and the demolition of natural or manmade obstacles prior to amphibious landings.

The top five characteristics of a SEAL are technical and tactical proficiency, responsibility, decisiveness, integrity, and perseverance. As a SEAL you must go through a six month training course held at the Naval Special Warfare Training Center in Coronado, CA. (Which is not a bad place to train.)

During the six months you go through three phases. The first phase consists of an eight week Basic Conditioning that includes “Hell Week” where you will be taken to your limits.

Here’s a list of some of the fun things you’ll be required to do to make it through Hell Week.

Run 1 ½ miles wearing boots and long pants in under 11 minutes and 30 seconds.

Oh come on, that’s not so bad, especially for a guy who spends all day at the gym, right?

The second phase consists of eight weeks of diving courses and the third phase consists of Land Warfare. After you complete basic training, you go through three weeks of parachute training.

If you’re still sure this career is the adventure you’ve been looking for, keep reading.

Now that you made it through the training and are chosen to become one of the elite few, congratulations! This is the career that can last a lifetime.

You could spend the next 10 or 20 years anywhere from the Gobi Desert to the Arctic. You might train as a sniper or a jumpmaster and shove rookies out of planes. You could also be called on by the President of the United States to take out bad guys. That would definitely be bragging rights at your next high school reunion, except that SEALs observe a strict code of silence about their operations, even in retirement.

There’s no guarantee that you’ll even make it through the rigorous training, but you won’t know until you get off the damn couch and try. The one guarantee is that if you make it and become a SEAL it will be an exciting and challenging adventure, with great opportunities for leadership, responsibility and advancement.